SOCKEYE OPEN ON AUGUST 1st

As July comes to a close, we are very optimistic about the fishing opportunities in coming weeks. Over the last few days we have had some very good chinook fishing on our full day trips and solid coho fishing on our half day trips. The chinook are getting bigger, we have had fish well into the mid twenties over the last couple days. The other big news is that sockeye salmon will be opening on August 1st. This is the peak year for Fraser River Sockeye, and if current trends continue, we are likely looking at a run of 14 to 18 million fish! So in short, it looks like we have some good opportunity in coming weeks!

In recent weeks, our full day trips have been running across to fish the east side of Gabriola Island when weather permits. Fishing has been very consistent and most days our boats were hooking 6 to 12 good chinooks a trip along with some coho. We have been running our gear pretty close to bottom in 150 to 220 feet of water in the Gulf Island’s. We have been running flasher/hootchie combinations pretty religiously this month in the Gulf Island’s. Blue, Green, and Chartreuse Yamishita Spackleback Hootchies have been very productive in tandem with Guide Series Bon Chovy, STS, Lemon Lime and Brain Freeze Flashers. The Gulf Islands will likely continue to produce for the next 3 to 4 weeks, but we will likely start to shift our chinook focus to the Fraser Mouth in the next week or two as the first big push of Fraser River bound chinook and sockeye hit local waters in the first to second week of August.

Local coho salmon fishing has been all over the map over the last few weeks. Some days have been lights out and other days been lights off! The last few days have been quite good and it is quite likely that consistency will improve over the next week. West Vancouver has had a few good short shots of coho, but the bulk of the summer hatchery run is still sitting and feeding offshore. I would be willing to bet that they will push into West Vancouver in the next 7 days. It is quite common to get a big push of coho this week. We will soon find out! Hard to beat white or glow hootchies on coho this time of year.

Early indications are pointing to a very good sockeye return to the Fraser River this August. This is the peak year in the four year cycle. Test fisheries in Area 20 off the West Side of Vancouver Island have been consistently strong over the last 10 days. As of now, according to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans the run is tracking slightly above the pre season P 50 forecast. If current trends continue we will likely see a run of 14 to 20 million fish back to the Fraser River this year We will be heading out this week to scout for sockeye. It will be still early in the opening and it may take a week or two for numbers to build. Stay tuned!!

We are getting rigged and ready for the sockeye opening. Our favourite set ups our pretty basic, we will run the standard local flasher colours of chartreuse, green, and red. Our choices are the Guide Series T-10, STS, and Bon Chovy Flashers. Other flashers will obviously work as well, but these are the ones that we rely on. We pair the flashers up with Michael Bait Red Sockeye Hootchies on a 26 to 30 inch leader. It is also very beneficial to run a few dummy flashers as well. We will have lots of sockeye gear in our shop on Granville Island if you need the right gear and some hints. Have a look at this video below that we did with Fishing with Rod in mid September in 2015, it shows what sockeye fishing can be like and the methods we use.

If you are looking to get on the water this August, please call or email soon as the local charter fleet is getting booked up quickly. We are hoping for a great summer fishery for chinook and sockeye!

Summer definitely arrived over the last few days! It looks like we are now into a summer pattern now with warm temperatures and clear skies for the next couple weeks. This arrival of this hot weather brought some strong Northwest winds and tough fishing this past weekend, but things look like they are going to stabilize nicely this week with calm winds returning. Fishing has been productive on the Gulf Islands side with some nice chinook salmon up to 22 pounds and a few coho now in the mix. Locally, things have been tough over the last week and we have been working hard to hook a good fish or two on our half days charters. We are looking forward to more coho pushing into Vancouver Harbour over the next couple weeks and our West Vancouver fishery starting.

Thrasher Rock, Porlier Pass, Entrance Island and the east side of Gabriola Island have been the most productive areas on our full day trips over the last two weeks. We have had some pretty solid charters and most trips are hooking 5 to 10 good chinook a trip. Most of the chinook salmon are coming right off bottom and hootchies and the new Gibbs Wee Gees are by far the most consistent producers right now. Blue, Chartreuse and Green Spacklebacks have been our best hootchie colours as usual. We should continue to see decent waves of chinook in the coming weeks. In addition to the chinook, we have been getting a few coho and some nice ling cod. On a very interesting note, we know of 4 confirmed halibut caught over the last 2 weeks off Gabriola and Galiano Island’s…..good sign!

In local waters we have been working the South End of Bowen Island for the most part. Seems like the majority of the good fish are coming between Cowan Point and Cape Roger Curtis. We are finding them pretty close to the shoreline in 200 to 400 feet of water. Cowan Point is often a good bet on the flood tide. We are using larger G Force and Silver Horde Spoons between 50 and 130 feet on the downrigger. The G Force Bon Chovy, Trailhead and Outfitter pattern has been good. In Silver Horde the Cop Car, Irish Cream and the Kitchen sink are good producers as usual. As we move into late June and July we will anticipate our first waves of coho pushing into Vancouver Harbour. This is a favourite local fishery as it is only 10 minutes from the dock. We will start scouting things out over the next week. We have seen them show as early as June 15th and as late as late July in the past. We will see what this year brings. It seems that survival has been good as there is quite a few in Georgia Strait.

We are hoping to see a good return of sockeye salmon this summer. This is the big cycle for Fraser River Sockeye and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is forecasting 14 million sockeye to return. The forecasting for sockeye in recent years has not been very good and we will have a better idea of run strength in late July and early August once test fisheries start in the approach areas. We are crossing our fingers!

Summer is here! Give us a call or email if you would like to get out for a charter!

For the most part, local anglers and charter guests have been spoiled by some excellent chinook fishing over the last month. Things have slowed in local waters over the last week, but the Gulf Island’s have continued to produce very well. With a mellower tide set coming up this week, local fishing hopefully perk back up.

For the most part, the most consistent activity locally over the last couple weeks has been from Cowan Point up to Cape Roger Curtis along the South End of Bowen Island. Most boats are concentrating their efforts in 200 to 400 feet of water doing long tacks back and forth. There has been lots of bait showing and it seems to be a mixture of medium sized herring and anchovies. Most fish have been coming reasonably deep between 80 and 150 feet on the downrigger. Bigger 4.0 spoons have been working best for us recently with the Silver Horde Homeland Security, Herring Aide, Irish Cream and the G Force Bon Chovy, Trailhead and Outfitter being our favourites.

The Gulf Island’s have been excellent on most days in recent weeks. We have spent most of our time off the Eastern shoreline of Gabriola Island, but good reports have been coming from Galiano Island up to Nanaimo. The fish on the far side of the Strait have been a little deeper and productive depths have been from 90 to 200 feet on the downriggers. Hootchies seem to the best bet over there for most boats. Our favourite Gulf Island hootchie is the Yamashita Green or Chartreuse Spackleback. This hootchie paired up with a Gibbs Delta Lemon Lime or Bon Chovy Flasher is a deadly combo over there.

As we progress into late May and June we are anticipating that the fishing will continue to be productive along the surfline from Passage Island up to Gibsons. Over the last couple years, the fishing has remained productive for chinook in Vancouver area waters well into June, we are hoping for a repeat performance. We like to recommend the longer 8 and 10 hour trips in May and June. We often run a little further this time of year and the longer days often pay off. We often cross to the Gulf Island’s on our 10 hour trips in May, June and July if the weather and fishing reports are favourable.

We have stopped prawning as of early May now that the commercial season has started. This past winter and spring was the best prawning we have seen in quite a few years. We are hoping that next winter and spring are just as good! Crabbing has been ok in Vancouver Harbour and we will be dropping traps for another few weeks until the commercial season opens up.

—————–SANDY COVE NET PEN PROJECT—————

It is that time of year again! Our Sandy Cove Chinook sea pen project is up and running. There are 1110,000 hatchery chinook salmon in the for the next 3 weeks. They will be there to acclimatize to the ocean environment under safe and stable conditions. The beauty of this project is the survival rates are substantially higher than conventional in river releases. These chinook are of Harrison River origin and are a very important food source to the Southern Resident Killer Whales. These chinook also support first nation, commercial and recreational fisheries. As local fisherman and charter operators we have been succesfully catching these net pen chinook in our winter, spring, summer and fall fisheries! This project has been made posssible by years of dedication by the Vancouver Sport Fishing Guides Association under the leadership of Phil Grassi. We have had lots of help and support from the Capilano Hatchery and its wonderful stagg. We are excited to feed and watch these little guys grow over the next few weeks! They will then be released into English Bay and return to Capilano River. We look forward to catching a few along the way! It is projects like this that are having big impacts on local chinook populations!

We have been out on the water quite a bit in recent weeks! Overall fishing has been good in the Gulf Island’s and more hit or miss than it was than earlier this winter in Howe Sound. We have had some very good charters, but we have also had a few tough trips in Howe Sound. Crabbing and Prawning have been very productive on most of our trips. . Looking forward to April and May this is when we typically have some of the most consistent chinook fishing of the year in our offshore waters near Bowen Island, the Hump, the Gulf Island’s, QA Marker and the Bell Buoy. Last year we had our best chinook fishing of the year in the last two weeks of April and the first few weeks of May. This was primarily on our full day trips to the Gulf Island’s and further out in Georgia Strait. It will be interesting to see where the early biomass of Chinook salmon lands this spring!

Like usual in the winter months, most of the fish that are being caught have been very close to bottom in Howe Sound and the Gulf Island’s. This pattern will slowly start to change in the coming weeks as the days get longer and warmer and triggers the first plankton blooms of the year and the spring freshet. We did notice some minor blooms earlier this week with the warm weather. When we start to notice more consistent plankton blooms, this will trigger our offshore fishery to begin. Depending on the year, this usually starts in the first or second week of April. We have already seen some fish start to congregate and suspend in the outer reaches of Vancouver Harbour, so it will be not too long now.. Areas that we will look to focus on as we move into April include the Freighter Anchorages in English Bay, the Bell Buoy, QA Marker, Cowan Point and the offshore waters off the South End of Bowen Island and the Gulf Islands. These fish will start to suspend more and more and soon it will be worth running some shallower lines.

We have been running primarily Skinny Gs and smaller 3.0 and 3.5 G Force and Silver Horde Spoons in recent weeks. Hootchies don’t seem to be as productive as they were earlier in the winter fishery, but always worth a shot. In the Skinny G’s and G Force Spoons we have had our best luck on the Outfitter, Bon Chovy and Killy Mcgee patterns. In Silver Horde we have been having our best luck on Irish Cream and Kitchen Sink patterns. As we move into our springtime fishery in Vancouver Harbour and the outer reaches of Howe Sound, we will start to run a little more anchovy. We often find when the waters dirty up in early April because of the plankton bloom and the snow melt, it is time to run an anchovy or two.

Give us a call to book your spring fishing trip! Our offshore chinook fishery should start to really get going in the second to third week of April. Until then, we will likely continue with our standard winter tactics in Howe Sound, the Gulf Island’s and Vancouver Harbour. Our winter special is still happening until the end of March. Check out this link, it has all the details on this great deal!

Winter chinook salmon season is here and so is our “Winter Chinook Charter Special”. Like we do every year,we are offering fully guided winter fishing charters at a great rate from January 15th to March 31st! This year, we are offering full day trips (8 hours) for a great price. This winter chinook season has been a productive one so far and we are hoping and anticipating that things will keep rolling right into spring!
In the past, we have done a half day special as well, but we feel the full day trip offers the best experience in the winter months. A full day trip allows us to fish where we want, work the tides, move around a bit, and have the gear in the water longer to increase the number of hook ups! Have a look at this video we shot last winter chinook season, this is what we are targeting and the area we typically fish in the winter. The scenery is worth the trip alone!

The beauty of the winter is the lack of crowds, stunning scenery and some of the best eating salmon of the year. On our charters no previous saltwater fishing experience is required and we supply all the fishing equipment. Our boats are rigged to perfection with new Mercury and Yamaha Outboards, Islander Reels, Scotty Downriggers and all the hot gear from Gibbs Delta Tackle! In addition to trolling for winter chinook salmon, crab traps will be dropped for Dungeness crabs on the way to the fishing grounds. If weather and fishing locations permit, we can also drop traps for spot prawns!

Special Rates Winter Rates (8 hour trips):

1 -2 people: $749.00 3-4 people: $849.00 5-6 people: $999.00

If you are looking to make a weekend of it, we can combine 2 days of fishing and a night at a seaside cabin at the Union Steamship Marina on Bowen Island. A 2 day package with a night on Bowen Island starts at $569.00 per person. Makes for a great quick fishing getaway for a great price. Please get in touch with us for more charter and accommodation info!

The last few weeks have provided local anglers with good weather and consistent winter chinook salmon fishing. There has only been the odd tough fishing and weather day so far this month. Hopefully things continue into the New Year!

It doesn’t seem like there is a real hot spot right now, it seems like all the usual winter chinook spots are holding fish depending on the day. If you don’t find bait or fish in one spot, you can always make a move, or just stick it out and wait for fish to move in. There has been fish in Vancouver, Howe Sound and the Gulf Island’s. We typically try and go where conditions are the nicest! Calm water is the best water! The nice thing about the winter months is that when the Squamish winds are blowing in Howe Sound, it is usually calm in Vancouver Harbour. If it is blowing in Georgia Strait and Vancouver Harbour, it is usually calm in Howe Sound.

As usual a variety of different lures will catch winter chinook. We usually stick to smaller G Force, Skinny G and Silver Horde Spoons with green/white/chartreuse type colour combinations. We have also had good success on hootchies so far this winter. Plain white glow and green and chartreuse spacklebacks have been our favourites. We been running our spoons behind Gibbs Delta Guide Series STS, Lemon Lime, Bon Chovy and Madi Flashers like usual. Our charter and tackle shop on Granville Island has all the right gear for winter fishing in Vancouver.

Over the last few years, our winter and spring chinook fishery in local waters has really improved. The reason for this is pretty simple…..food!! A couple key things have happened in recent years. Let’s hope things continue!

1. The local herring population in Howe Sound has increased dramatically in recent years. Herring is a staple for immature chinook and now that the local biomass is increasing, the salmon, whales, birds and marine mammals are loving it. This herring revival so to speak, is not by fluke, it is due to the hard work by the Squamish Streamkeepers. Have a look at this link, it shows what this hardworking group has been up to in recent years. www.squamishstreamkeepers.net/streamkeepers/Herring.html Hopefully in years to come our government will realize and act upon the vital importance of herring in our waters. The Squamish Streamkeepers deserve a massive thank you for their hard work. Hopefully the DFO can follow their strong lead and help in rehabilitating and protecting herring habitat, they are so important! When the herring got wiped out by industry in Howe Sound years ago, nothing was done by government to bring them back, glad to see that a bit of luck and hard work by volunteers has made a big difference!

2. Anchovies have also established themselves in Howe Sound…..big time! Over the last few years, a significant portion of the local chinook diet is being made up of anchovies. This additional food source has been present in Howe Sound in volume since 2015 and has significantly helped and attracted fish, birds and mammals in Howe Sound. Check out this fantastic film by Bob Turner documenting the anchovies in Howe Sound.

We are pretty busy with charters between Christmas and New Years, but have a few days available if you would like to get out on the water. We will be announcing the details of our WINTER CHARTER SPECIAL early in the New Year. We have been running our Winter Special from January 15th to March 31st for over 10 years and it is one of our most popular charters of the year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! We are hoping for a fishy 2018!

It looks like we are going to have another productive winter chinook salmon season. Like last year, we have had another encouraging start to our winter fishery in Vancouver Harbour, Howe Sound and the Gulf Island’s. There seems to be decent numbers of fish in most of the normal winter haunts. We have spent quite a few days on the water over the last few weeks, including and highlighted by an excellent 4 day Bowen Island Trip with a great couple (JT and Shannon)!

Over the last few weeks, we have had our fair share of varied weather conditions. We have enjoyed summer like sunshine and battled through Arctic winds and even a few snow flurries. As we move into December, the weather will likely be a little more consistent as winter sets in for a few months. We have covered lots of water in recent weeks and found quite a few undersized and some nice legal fish into the mid teens. Interestingly enough, the ratio for legals to undersized was actually higher in October than in November. The last couple weeks has provided better action, but some days you have to weed through the undersized to get a legal.

We have spent most of our time in Howe Sound, but we did take advantage of some calm weather to head to the Gulf Islands and further up the Sunshine Coast last week. We found pretty good action in both areas, with good numbers of undersized and a few legals. As usual, we are fishing smaller spoons and hootchies fairly close to the bottom. Look for bait and there will be fish around it at some point.

In the winter months, we don’t change things up all that much in terms of our fishing gear. Over the years we have found a handful of set ups that work exceptionally well in our Vancouver winter salmon fishery. Here is a list of our go to spoons/hootchies/flashers in the winter:

Winter is truly a spectacular time to fish in the Vancouver area. It is not just the consistent fishing, it is also about where we travel to get to the fishing grounds and what we see while trolling and traveling to the fishing grounds. We are often spoiled with a post card like backdrop and frequent wild life sightings!

Give us a call to set up a winter chinook charter! Better yet, check out our Bowen Island winter fishing packages! Great accommodation, amazing scenery and consistent salmon fishing, crabbing and prawning!

September was a pretty good month for fishing in Vancouver. We enjoyed fairly consistent waves of big chinook salmon and over the last week we have seen improved numbers of coho salmon. We have roughly one more month left to target migrating salmon before we shift our focus to winter chinook salmon in late October.

Over the last month we have spent the majority of our time off the Fraser RIver Mouth and near Capilano RIver Mouth. As usual, these fish are coming in waves as they prepare to enter the river. We have had some days where we have hooked over a dozen big fish on a charter and some days where we have to work for a hook up or two. For the most part, most trips did well with some decent fish averaging in the 10 to 20 pound range!

Looking forward to the next month we will focus on two local fisheries. The Capilano Mouth fishery should be productive for chinook salmon in the 10 to 30 pound range until the fall rains slow things down around the 15th of October. There will also be some coho around as well. The Mouth of the Fraser should heat up for coho and chum salmon in October and we should have some good fishing up until the last week of October. Last year we had pretty good action for chum and coho until October 27th or so. A longer 6 or 8 hour charter on the flood tide is a good bet in October. If you can line up a good long flood tide and a calm day in October the Fraser Mouth can be a very good bet.

We have been running a mixture of anchovies and herring while targeting our late run chinook and coho salmon. We have been very successfully running Gibbs Delta Madi, Lemon Lime, Slurpee and Bon Chovy Flashers recently. As we progress into October we will likely start to run a few more Skinny G’s, glow hootchies, and G Force Spoons for returning coho to the Fraser River.

Last year we had our winter chinook salmon start very early and we enjoyed some very active fishing by late October/early Novermber in Howe Sound. With the abundance of bait in local waters, we are optimistic that we will be in for another strong early start. Our winter chinook fishery seems to be getting year by year as local ocean conditions seem to be improving.

Sturgeon fishing has been quite good in the Fraser River and will continue for the next couple months. As more and more salmon pour into the Fraser River fishing sturgeon fishing should continue to be productive for the next couple months!

Right on schedule our first major pulse of chinook salmon arrived in local waters in the middle of August. We have seen some very good waves of chinook salmon in the 10 to 30 pound range roll into local waters over the last couple weeks. These fish are coming in with the tides and some pulses have been more significant than others resulting in the odd slow tide. Overall, fishing has been quite good for some excellent quality chinook salmon. A significant improved from a slower than normal July!!!

We have been having our success all along the Fraser RIver mouth. Depending on the day, tides and weather there have been fish from the Mile Markers all the way down the shelf to Sandheads. Mixed in with the adult chinook have been some pinks, the odd coho and quite a few jack chinook. We are expecting continued pulses of Fraser bound chinook for the the next 4 weeks. The majority of the chinook we are landing are red chinook, but this will change in the next 10 to 15 days as the big white chinook enter local waters. September is typically the month that the biggest chinook of the year are in local waters! We are looking forward to big September bites! In addition to the chinook, we should see a mixed fishery for pinks, hatchery coho and chum in September.

We have been running primarily anchovies while targeting these Fraser bound chinook. Having said that there are days where Skinny Gs and Glow Hootchies have been very productive. With the often silty Fraser River mouth water, we rely on flashers with UV blades as they kick up a lot of light down in the water. Our favourites are the Gibbs Delta Guide Series STS, Lemon LIme, Madi, Bon Chovy, Slurpee, and T 10 flashers. You can’t go wrong with a selection of these flashers in local waters. Our favourite teaser heads have been anything with green, glow and chartreuse. Stop by our charter and tackle shop on Granville Island, we have all the right tackle and bait for local waters.

We made a great addition to our fleet this month!!!! We added “Bob Dolphin” to our charter roster. The boat is a 25 Foot Grady White Dolphin. The boat has one of the best fishing layouts that we have found with lots of deck space. The boat is decked out with all the goodies needed for a first class charter boat! We got a fresh re-power and got taken care by River City Marine with an impressive set of twin 200 Mercury Verados and a 9.9hp Trolling Motor. This boat moves in comfort and style! Looking forward to some fishy seasons to come! Check out the video below!

Sturgeon fishing has also been decent in the Fraser River. Putting your time in has resulted in some great fish being landed. The next few months are typically solid months to target sturgeon in the Fraser.

Give us a call or an email if you would like to get out on the water, September is typically provides good weather and good salmon opportunity in local waters!!

The last couple weeks have provided us with some good chinook salmon fishing on our full day trips to the Gulf Island’s. Our local fishing has been very hit or miss. We should be seeing good numbers of pink salmon in Vancouver Harbour right now, but it has been very slow. Local fishing should pick up as we should see a push of coho soon and Fraser Chinook will start to build in numbers in coming weeks.

When weather has allowed, we have been making the run across the Strait to fish the east side of Gabriola Island. Fishing has been consistent on most days with some nice fish up to 25 pounds. The fish are deep and dragging bottom in 100 to 220 feet seems to be the most productive. Last year, we enjoyed good chinook fishing in the Gulf Island’s well into August.

Local fishing has been pretty tough overall. We have seen a few ok days off the West Vancouver shoreline and off the Bell Boy, but we have not found much consistency. There is a few pinks around, the odd coho, and increasing numbers of chinooks. It seems as though most of our half day trips are now getting a shot or two at mature chinooks each trip. We are excepting chinook numbers to start to increase in coming weeks as the Fraser River Summer Chinook run starts to enter local waters in August. Peak time for summer red chinook in Vancouver is from August 12th or so into early September. As the red chinook numbers slow in early September, the big white chinook are there to replace them. Even though things are unseasonably slow now in local waters, we are anticipating a good August chinook fishery.

We have been running mostly hootchies and spoons over on the Gulf Island side for chinook. Our go to set ups over on the Gulf Islands have been glow Yamashita Hootchies (white glow and spacklebacks in blue, green and chartreuse) and Guide Series Gibbs Delta Flashers (Lemon lime, STS, Bon Chovy, Madi) Skinny G’s in Blue/Chrome and the Outfitter have also been effective. On the Vancouver Side we have been running primarily anchovies and the odd glow hootchie thrown in the mix. Our charter shop has all the right gear for local waters, stop by if you are on Granville Island.

Sturgeon fishing has been pretty good on the Fraser RIver. Now that the river has dropped the fishing has been more consistent with some great fish up to 8 feet being hooked up. The next few months presents very good opportunity for sturgeon.

August is just around the corner and we are looking forward to the Fraser River Chinook run that will be entering local waters in coming weeks!